why we're different.

Honestly Clothing, is a brand that is driven by the mission to provide every individual with clarity and confidence. The clarity to see who you really are & the confidence to be who you really are. The crown represents the idea that when you are aware of your own individuality, you become the master of your own life, and that is the greatest thing you can be. The truth is, only we can truly validate ourselves. Live Honestly.  Now for the history lesson.

My name is Dave.

For years, I worked jobs that I hated and did all kinds of things that I didn't understand, and I hated myself for not having any other options. I had no outlet for self-expression, no creative endeavors and was stuck in the spin-cycle of boring, monotonous, daily, drudgery. I was dead inside and just...working. (And so was everybody else around me).  The difference was that I realized that I just could not live like that.

But let me go back even further.

Do you remember that whole teenage angst period when you were in high school?  Worried about fitting in, anxious about the future, lost in the pressure that anybody with an opinion tried to impose on you?  Yep, me too.  The funny thing is that I realized later that most people go through their entire lives living in teenage angst.  Because pressure is everywhere, pulling on us in all directions until we don't know which way is up.  Pressure to do this or that, or go here or there, or be this or that.  For whatever reason, we want to impress people, we want to be well-liked, and we want people to think that we’re special.  I've always hated that. 

So this is where t-shirts enter into all this pressure.

When I was in high school, I used to make t-shirts for fun.  I would buy blank white tees and draw on them with markers, depicting some of the most cynical, cringe-worthy, and at times downright explicit words and images I could muster up.  The shock value was definitely there, but over time those t-shirts became my billboard to show everybody else that not only was I going to say things that people may not agree with, but that I was going to be loud about it because I wasn’t afraid to talk about who I honestly am.  I didn’t have messages that were about politics or global warming or any of the “important” topics, I was a walking billboard for the things that I saw and experienced, and over time I became the kid that always told the truth.  If I had diarrhea, everyone else knew it too.  If I thought chemistry class was bullshit, everyone else knew it too.  If I thought that social media was a bunch of people wearing masks and sleep walking through life, everyone who saw me wearing my “fakebook” shirt knew it too.

I had always been a contrarian.  Not just for the sake of looking for arguments, but I’ve always had problems with authority, I’ve always taken issues with dogmas and clichés, and anytime I would hear phrases like “because I said so!” it would make my skin crawl.  I knew I wasn’t alone in my thinking so I made it my mission to wake people up from the “day in day out”, following the herd, safety first mentality that keeps everyone in their own self-manufactured prison.  Leaning on my experiences in high school with my homemade t-shirts, t-shirts became my platform.

So naturally after high school I failed my way through 6 months of community college and joined the military.  Not even joking.

Life is tough when you don’t have the good sense to believe in yourself.

After I joined the military and scraped some money together, Honestly Clothing Company was officially born.  I had no idea what I was doing as far as running a brand or anything with business, but I didn’t care.  I knew that I was passionate about getting people to “snap out of it” in life.  Honestly Clothing failed horribly for the first few years as a business but the message was a raging success.  The mission was a part of who I was so I just couldn’t let it go.  I reached out to all the people I knew, friends, family, college mates and anybody else who believed not just in me, but believed in the ideas that I really wanted to spread.

And that’s where we are now. Growing, learning, and most importantly, reaching people who don’t see their uniqueness and individuality as their primary strength and showing them that should.  The enlightenment of understanding that you are you, and you should be you regardless of external pressure or circumstances is not just some "rah rah believe in yourself" message.  IT IS THE ONLY WAY TO LIVE. Honestly.